Lauren Alaina is back today with her third full-length studio album – Sitting Pretty on Top of the World – following the release of two critically acclaimed EPs released last year. Stream the album here.
Following the release of two critically acclaimed EPs last year, Lauren Alaina has today released her third full-length record – Sitting Pretty on Top of the World – that shows the extent of Alaina’s growth as an artist in recent years, both sonically and lyrically. Alaina describes how personal this album is, saying, “It’s about a dreamer becoming an achiever. It’s being broken and ending up healed. It’s all of me. The early chapters. The new beginnings. The hope for the future and total appreciation for the past. Taking the Road Less Traveled and ending up Sitting Pretty on Top of the World.” This sentiment of healing is clear throughout the record that feels like a new chapter from start to finish.
Kicking off with the deeply poignant ‘It Was Me,’ Alaina takes a mature approach to the ending of a relationship, acknowledging her own flaws and faults. ‘But if i’m being honest, boy / I wasn’t being that honest, boy / Had some ghosts in my closet / I had to set free / Had to unpack that baggage, boy / Yeah, I had to drown out all the noise / So I could see / That it wasn’t you / I didn’t love / It was me.’ It’s an extraordinarily honest reflection on her own flaws that feels incredibly refreshing, raw and real. It’s a slow burning track that heralds in Alaina’s new era. This is not to say that she is fearful of laying blame at a lover’s door. ‘Good Ole Boy’ brings back a true country resonance to the record, a melodious track about knowing how to love someone right as is the honky-tonk infused swelling ballad ‘You Ain’t A Cowboy,’ where Alaina decries an ex as not living up the ideal of a cowboy. ‘You ain’t nothing like George Strait / His kind don’t just ride away.’ ‘I’m Not Sad Anymore’ is another swelling ballad, describing the typical moment when an ex reaches out, just as she’s about to move on. ‘You decide that I’m worth fighting for / When I’m not sad anymore.’
‘Getting Good’ feels immensely pertinent and meaningful, a testament to happiness itself, accompanied by country music icon Trisha Yearwood. ‘I’m thinking once I learn to soak up every moment / I’ll realize my life’s already good.’ The singers voices merge effortlessly, given their individually staggering vocal range and tone, in this tenderly delivered track. Elsewhere, Alaina brings back this theme of living in the moment and embracing life on ‘Run’ embraces the drive of life, its journey and its highs and lows. ‘We run, living life like it’s a highway and we’re all stuck in drive / Like a preacher on a Sunday, always going overtime / Like the muddy water rushing in the river outside of town / Yeah, the clock just keeps on running and we can’t slow down.’ It’s a rounded track that effervesces with bright energy topped by Alaina’s flawless vocal. It’s an idea that Alaina kicks off on the more commercial ‘If The World Was a Small Town,’ in which she acknowledges her own journey and desire to spread her wings outside a small town. ‘You weren’t made for leavin’ / There was no way of you keepin’ / Me inside those county lines / I had to see our way past the pines.’
There is much in the record that is built for a live performance, ‘Same Story, Different Saturday Night’ for instance, will easily be translated into a mammoth stadium retelling, as will ‘When The Party’s Over,’ where Lauren Alaina dances out her pain, decrying the fact that a lover only calls her when he’s drunk – the track takes her vocal to fresh heights. Most notable though is the raucous ‘Getting Over Him’ where Alaina sings to a rebound about being the person to help her get over an ex lover, acknowledging the situation for what it was. ‘We were dive bar kissin’, heartbreak fixin’ / No strings, Saturday night / Hot like a match that burned out fast / Forever wasn’t in our eyes / You knew it, and I knew it / And it was a damn good time / My last call, first call, no fallin’ / Just your gettin’ over him guy, yeah.’ More than anything, the track is immensely fun, with Alaina and Pardi trading off vocals with ease – a boot-stomping track that trips over with ease.
Alaina is often at her best when she is pouring her emotion into her stellar vocal. So, on ‘On Top of the World’ she takes the pace down a notch where she nurses a broken heart and on the moving, mellow notes on ‘What Do You Think Of?’ On this last, Alaina teams up with Lukas Graham and the result is a sweetly tender and heartfelt ballad. ‘What do you think of when you think of me? / When you look back on us what do you see? / Is it the good times? Is it the bad times? / Is it somewhere in between?’ Possibly, a grittier vocal may have been a better fit on this track, particularly where it teeters on the line of saccharine in the chorus, but the emotion is real and true. The final track – ‘Change My Mind’ – on the record is one of Alaina’s most emotive and meaningful yet, about healing her hurt and proving her wrong after bad relationships. It’s the perfect ending note to a far more rounded project than Alaina has released so far, showing her growth and maturity as an artist. Credit to her producer Paul DiGiovanni, who has handled her vocal incredibly delicately and tenderly, allowing a true range of emotion to be exhibited on the record.
